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1. So. What have we learned?
2. One thing we learned is the vagaries of reputation & how that shapes reading. Among literary people, Dale Peck is still fairly well-known as a self-styled "hatchet man" with an over-the-top polemical style. He was a fixture of Wieseltier's book section.
3. Here's a snapshot of how Peck is viewed in literary circles.
4. Literary people who saw Dale Peck's byline would likely know what to expect (a baroque, excessive screed). But I suspect few political readers would have that contextual background & so, coming fresh to the piece, reacted with WTF.
5. This is not to say the piece was good (it wasn't). But it does read differently if you know who Peck is and that some of the kookiness of the piece is not untypical of Peck's frequently failed attempts at stylized writing.
6. For the record, I don't condone violence,
